


In the Light Of a Quiet Morning

by Marzipanmadness



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Domestic Fluff, FWP, Falling In Love, Fluff, Fluff without Plot, Forehead Kisses, Lazy Mornings, M/M, Morning Cuddles, Morning Kisses, Sharing a Bed, Sleepy Cuddles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-20
Updated: 2015-02-20
Packaged: 2018-03-13 22:18:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3398285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marzipanmadness/pseuds/Marzipanmadness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock can't sleep so he sneaks into John's bed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Light Of a Quiet Morning

**Author's Note:**

> This is some really short fluff with absolutely no plot that came about because I was texting Somethingsalwayswrong about cuddly sun-drenched mornings. 
> 
> This is not beta'd or reviewed very much. It's just some silliness to hopefully make you smile.

The air is still and stagnant. It doesn’t move, it doesn’t bend. When Sherlock breathes out, it coils around his neck and slows into a blanket of heavy gas. He lies in his bed staring into the darkness and listens to cabs rolling down Baker Street and the low humming of the refrigerator. It’s too quiet, it’s too still. His mind skips from one fact to another, jumping from small trivial lists he learned when he was eleven to recollecting every observation from his last case in order.

A small memory from the victim’s autopsy stands out. He files it away, tucks it into his mind palace in the room designated “victims”. No sleep will come tonight if he spends too much time in the mind palace. Again, he opens his eyes and stares. The room is warm from the sticky summer rain. The blankets feel suffocating and oppressive. Slowly he sits up and rubs his fingers across his face.

He wonders if John is still awake. It had only been a few hours since he had heard John flick the telly off and shuffle up the stairs to his own bedroom. A surge of curiosity courses through him in a way he would excuse as boredom. There isn’t much thought required to follow his feet touching the floor and padding across the flat to John’s door.

There’s a clean, very _John_ smell coming from beyond the door. Sherlock touches the doorknob and turns it very quietly, painfully slow. The air in John’s room rushes out across Sherlock’s face and accosts him with warm feelings, memories of John’s eyes upon him, of his laughter, of his voice. He feels a desperate need to hear it again. John left his window open, the source of fresh air and a delicate summer breeze.

“John… John are you awake?” he whispers.

He is answered with a muffled grumble and a huff. Sherlock’s eyebrows furrow as he narrows his eyes. John’s window faces east, directly in the path of a street light. It casts slotted light into the room and across john’s bed. He can barely see John beneath the piles of downy blankets he has cocooned himself in.

No answer was invitation enough, Sherlock decides. He creeps across the floor to John’s bed and slides himself next to John with careful movements. The blankets are warm from John’s body. It seeps into Sherlock’s skin and pulls him deeper.

This close Sherlock can see John’s eyes flicking back and forth in rapid eye movement. He’s letting out soft whimpers and grunts. A nightmare. A common occurrence for John, unfortunately. But the quiet ones were always harder to catch, to comfort. From Sherlock’s own bedroom he can usually only hear the bad ones. He wishes he could prevent them all.

Sherlock notices the way John’s chin is tucked, with the blankets over his ears but eyes still uncovered. He watches John’s lip tremble and feels his feet kicking softly. His fingers twitch slightly and little puffs of breath escape from his lips.

His hand slides across the sheets to find John’s, touching his fingers softly to remind him that wherever he thought he was, Sherlock was waiting for him to come home. A few minutes later John’s eyes slow, his face relaxes, and Sherlock allows the warmth of John’s bed to sink him into sleep. 

The morning comes with the warm glow of the sun across John’s face. He cracks his eyes open, rubs the sleep from his eyelashes. The blankets have gotten tangled up around him, pulled from the corners of his neatly tucked bed. There is a heavy weight beside him, silhouetted by the sunlight before him. Confused, he blinks and looks down to find Sherlock asleep, face buried against his right shoulder. Their bodies are tangled together in fabric and limbs.

He holds back a laugh. Part of him knew it was only a matter of time before they found each other like this. Without his flatmate’s signature scowl or rapidly deciphering eyes, he looks rather vulnerable. John wonders if he’s ever actually seen Sherlock asleep. A few times maybe, but he’s sure the idiot was faking it then.

How many times has he looked at Sherlock across the room and wished to touch his warm skin, to press his face against that willowy hair, to feel that breath across his cheeks… It had always been lingering above them, a question that was never asked. John looks at Sherlock, notices how the sun is shining through the window and warming everything it touches in a blanket of cozy morning light. He wonders when Sherlock had come into his room, and why, and thinks, “You know… I don’t mind.”

In fact, he really, really doesn’t. A burst of contentedness rises through his lungs and he bites his lip to keep from smiling. Maybe he should just go back to sleep. Maybe they could stay like this for a while. Maybe.

John presses his face against Sherlock’s hair and feels the residual heat the sun had bestowed there. Only then did Sherlock wake up enough to notice.

A hoarse grumble comes from deep inside Sherlock’s throat as he moves closer to John, clinging himself to anything he can reach.

John’s heart skips. “Good morning,” he whispers very quietly against Sherlock’s hair.

Sherlock hums. His arm lays heavy across John’s body, hand resting against his shoulder blades. For a moment he lets himself stay peaceful. But as Sherlock’s mind rises to consciousness, his body stiffens. He takes notice of his surroundings and panics slightly. How had he wrapped himself in John’s arms in his sleep? A small voice alerts him to John’s possible rejection upon his own waking.

But then he feels John smile above him, and press his face into his hair, and feels John’s arms slide up his back to hold him together in a solid embrace. Everything fades away. Everything but this. This room, this light, this feeling. Nothing will ever exist again.

Slowly, Sherlock turns his head up to look at John through bleary eyes. John’s eyebrows rise in question. He can’t help but smirk a little.

“You had a nightmare,” Sherlock tries to explain. The excuse seems a little silly now that they were millimeters away.

“You couldn't sleep,” John replies, his voice raw.

“It was annoying.”

“I’m sure it was.”

Moments pass, and they wonder who will break contact first. Sherlock sighs, but doesn’t move away from the contact. John savors the physical closeness he had been craving.

“Your breath is putrid,” Sherlock grumbles into John’s collarbone.

John laughs, jostling the both of them in bubbles of glee. “Yours isn’t exactly minty fresh either, you dick.”

“Go make tea, I always make tea. It’s your turn.” Sherlock pushes at John’s arm, but not enough to dislodge them.

The moment had passed, it seemed. A melancholy falls over John as he shifts away from Sherlock and sits up. He looks down at his flatmate and marvels. Sherlock’s eyes were piercing and clear from a full night’s sleep. His skin was still hazy and the sunshine made it seem like it was almost glowing. John’s heart sinks and floats all at once.

“And brush your teeth, while you’re at it,” Sherlock says with a slight edge of humor.

“Right.” John gets up and stretches as he leaves the room, leaving Sherlock to watch the way his back moves beneath the loose t-shirt he wore to bed. He listenes to John stumble down the stairs and turn the kettle on. The bathroom door opens and he hears sounds of him brushing his teeth. The kettle boils, mugs clink as they are taken down from the cupboard.

When John returns he is holding two mugs of hot tea and looks like he had combed through his bedhead a little. He sets the mugs on the bedside table and sits on the edge of the bed. Sherlock looks so at home here, he wishes he would never leave. Without thinking, John reaches over to smooth Sherlock’s hair away from his eyes, lingering there for a moment after.

Sherlock touches the tips of his fingers to John’s wrist, watching him thoughtfully. It seems like as good a time as any, John thought. He leans down and touches his lips to Sherlock’s forehead like the ghost of a caress, barely there but forever remembered.

Sherlock swallows the lump in his throat and blinks nervously when John pulls away. “Much better,” he says, and meets John’s eyes.

John smiles, and it’s pure and genuine in the light of a quiet morning.

“Your breath, I mean,” Sherlock adds.

John hands him a mug. “Mhm,” he hums and sips his own tea. Much better.


End file.
